Ok, this won't be anything new to any of you who have known me for a long time... I don't throw away anything. Even egg shells and banana peels end up in my compost pile.
And so it was for this 15 year old Coleman Powermate 6500 generator. I tried to fix it- I tried re-polarizing it, I swapped in 2 new regulator boards- Nothing worked, so it ended up parked somewhere, behind something, left to the whims of rain, sun, and bird poop.
Until 3 weeks ago, when I decided I needed a pressure washer - and one more powerful than the 2500psi one that I borrowed from my neighbor when I washed out my old barn/new workshop earlier this year....
Now, again: those of you who know me also know that I hate spending money on anything that I might be able to throw together myself out of old junk. So one day as I was tossing a load of scrap metal onto the trailer, I took a second glance at that old generator, and thought: "Hmmm, I wonder if that cool little 10hp Subaru engine still runs?"
and boy, run it did- some fresh gas in the tank, and a shot of carb cleaner into the throttle, and that old broken generator fired right up.
So, next step was to separate engine from generator- not too hard- It was just press-fit onto the engine's output shaft, Then , I started searching for a pressure washer pump that would fit the 7/8 inch tapered output shaft, but I couldn't find any pumps online that would fit- most pumps were designed for 3/4 or 1 inch keyed shafts. As far as the bolt pattern on the pump housing, I got lucky- this little Subaru had the correct bell housing bolt pattern, so all I needed was a way to adapt the tapered engine output shaft, to the key'd input on the pump.
Enter the go-cart community- Apparently there are a LOT of people who re-purpose old horizontal shaft engines out there. The adapter I needed to go from 7/8 tapered to 1 inch keyed was only 14 bucks on Amazon.
emboldened that this little Frankenstein project might actually work- I bit the bullet and ordered the shaft adaptor, and found a 4000psi, 3-piston pressure pump on Ebay, along with a gun, nozzles, and 50 foot, 5000psi hose.
after that, it was all easy- the adaptor fit the shaft perfectly (I only had to cut down the total length by an inch, and I put a couple spot welds at both ends of the key, for extra strength), and the pump slid right onto the converted shaft, and bolted right up to the engine.
The toughest part of the whole project was re-locating the muffler, so I wouldn't burn my hand when reaching under it to adjust the output pressure knob, and since I had the welder out, I tacked a chunk of pipe onto the side to hold the gun, and then I hooked up water, fired up the engine, and hit the trigger.... Success! I only needed to make a minor adjustment with the screwdriver to the load-sensing auto-throttle on the engine, and then change the oil (since I had no recollection of ever changing the oil in that engine, it actually outlasted the generator that the engine had spun for the last 15 years.
All in, I spent about $450 on the pump, gun, hose, shaft adaptor, etc, and spent about 3 hours hacking it all together, but it was worth it- You can't even buy a basic, 2500psi PW for less than about 600 bucks these days, and the big 4000PSI ones are all north of $1500.. Plus, C'mon- it's made out of old junk. The coolness factor has to be worth at least 5 bucks... This may be my most ultimate, homemade McGuyver hack of all time.
And with the generator's 5 gallon gas tank, I could pressure wash every sidewalk in Manhattan on a single tank of gas....
You're going to need another one of you to hold on to it at full pressure. 
